Spider-Man 3 Opened On This Day 13 Years Ago

Spider-Man 3 brought the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man trilogy to a close when it opened in theaters 13 years ago today on May 4, 2007, pitting Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) against the triple threat of best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), the newly arisen Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church), and the vengeful Venom (Topher Grace). The third highest-grossing movie of the year, behind only Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($963 million) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($940 million), Spider-Man 3‘s $890 million global box office made it the highest-grossing superhero movie ever at the time of release.

Peter’s long wished for romance with dream girl Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is endangered when problems in his personal life and superhero life come to a head, including complicated entanglements with school friend Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and a falling out with best friend Harry. Having learned Peter is Spider-Man, Harry resurrects the legacy of the Green Goblin after swearing to avenge his father, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), who Harry believes was murdered by the masked wall-crawler years earlier.

Now under the influence of an extraterrestrial symbiote — an inky black creature that increases his spider-like powers but also bringing out his dark side — Spider-Man seeks vengeance against new foe the Sandman, who is revealed as the real killer of Peter’s beloved Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). When the scorned Eddie Brock comes to be bonded with the symbiote, emerging as a sharp-toothed creature fueled by revenge, Peter Parker must overcome his greatest threat and the darkness within to once again save the day.

“This time the story was pretty much set up by the first two pictures. What wasn’t set up by the first two pictures was really influenced greatly from all the great writers and artists of the Marvel comic books of the first 45 years,” director and co-writer Raimi said in a 2007 interview. “It was more about sorting through the material and trying to figure out how best to conclude these story lines and where next our character Peter Parker had to grow to as a human being.”

Ahead of the blockbuster success of Spider-Man 3, Sony Pictures was planning a second Spider-Man trilogy. An early version of Spider-Man 4 would be developed by Raimi before the project — which would have pit Maguire’s Spider-Man against the Vulture — was cancelled and rebooted as The Amazing Spider-Man.

In recent years, while reflecting on Spider-Man 3, Raimi said his “awful” trilogy capper “just didn’t work very well.”

“I messed up with that third Spider-Man. People hated me for years. They still hate me for it,” he said in a 2014 interview. “I tried to make it work, but I didn’t really believe in all the characters. So that couldn’t be hidden from people who loved Spider-Man. If the director doesn’t love something, it’s wrong of them to make it when so many other people love it.”

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